1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fish packing machinery and especially to devices for incrementally moving the canning apparatus associated with such machinery for packing fish according to the fish size.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The preparation and the packaging of food products is presently a major industry. Naturally, it is desirable to mechanize as many of the operations involved in such preparation and packing as is feasible without loss of quality to the packaged goods. In the fish industry, it is therefore customary to mechanize the entire process of canning of the fish. This requires that the fish being packaged conform to the preconfigured container made available. Accordingly, the fish are customarily cut and pressed in forms for this purpose. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,857, issued Jan. 12, 1965 to Sennello, shows a fish canning control apparatus which uses movable sensors disposed on a fish conveying means for determining the quantity of fish on the conveying means in order that the speed of the cutting apparatus can be varied in accordance therewith. U.S. Pat. No. 2,542,133, issued Feb. 20, 1951 to Gorby, shows an apparatus for canning fish wherein fish fillets are cut into predetermined dimensions prior to being placed within a container.